The Pope

[stan the man]

I want to look at one of the most misunderstood and often attacked aspects of the Catholic Church: the Pope.

There are many misconceptions that people have. Some people sometimes think that the teaching of the Church is that the Pope is infallible; therefore, he can't sin. That's nonsense, although the present Pontiff goes to confession, I understand, at least once a week. He's got to have something to confess for it to be a valid sacrament administered to him. Others think that he always says the best thing at the right time. No, the Church has never insisted upon the fact that the Pope will always say the best thing at the right time.

The Church teaches in a simple summary that the Holy Father, the Pope, the Bishop of Rome, as the successor to Peter and the Vicar of Christ, when he speaks as the universal teacher from the Chair of Peter in defining faith and morals does so with an infallible charism or an infallible gift through the Holy Spirit so that we can give to him the full assent of our intellect and our will, and we can hear the voice of Christ coming to us through the voice of the Pope when he is speaking in this capacity.

I want to flush off on the meanings of this as time goes on, but there are three basic issues or problems. First of all, can I prove Papal Primacy, that is, that the Pope is not just the first among equals but that he has a certain primacy, a unique supremacy in relation to all of the Bishops. I have to begin by showing that Jesus conferred this gift upon Peter. Then secondly, I have to establish the doctrine of Papal succession. If I can prove from the Bible that Peter was granted by Jesus a certain primacy, that doesn't go far enough. I then have to go on to establish Papal succession; that is, Peter had successors to whom would be entrusted the same gift or charism. Then thirdly, I have to establish evidence for Papal infallibility, that is that God grants a gift to the successors of Peter for them, not to give new revelations. The Church insists that no Popes have ever given new revelation. Revelation has been, once and for all deposited by Christ through His Apostles and with the death of the last Apostle came the close of all public revelation. The Popes, in a sense are given the task of preserving and of transmitting, explaining and enforcing that revelation, but not giving new revelation. So that third doctrine is the doctrine of Papal infallibility, that when they transmit, when they explain, when they enforce it, they are granted a charism or a special spiritual gift preserving them from error.

Infallibility, doesn't mean he always says the right thing, always the right time; but that when he speaks with the authority that Christ gives to him, we have this Divine guarantee, because Christ promises that "I will build my Church." The Church of Christ is not a human institution first and foremost. Jesus identifies it as His own. "My church" and the institution and edification and up-building of the Church Jesus claims for himself, "I will build my Church." So, whatever instruments that Jesus chooses to use, ultimately are going to be under His control and He is going to be using them with this ultimate intention in mind, of building His Church, of governing His family and thus bringing about the guarantee that He imparts in Matthew 16, as we will see, that the gates of hell will not prevail against the Church, and will not prevail against the Rock which is Peter and the Popes who are in the line of succession with Peter.

 

[stan the man]

Now, I have just given to you a very quick, bird's-eye view of all that I want to do. Now I have to confess from the bottom of my heart and with total sincerity that I am not going to be able to do an adequate job in this thread. This is just too much information! If I type as rapidly as I possibly could and try to get everything across and go through all the others and everything else, I still couldn't get through 20 percent of it. So I'm not going to type my fingers off. Instead I'm going to try to focus upon the mountain peaks, the real highlights, so that you can see from scripture and from history and from the Church, the key ideas that I need to use and present and share as evidence and support for the belief of the Pope.

I am going to first and primarily look at scripture. I am also going to look at the historical development of the Church's understanding and then, finally, I am going to focus on some of the Church's teachings relative to the Pope and his authority. Before I go on, I think I need to recommend some sources for study, over above and beyond what I can talk about in this thread.

I would like to recommend some books, a book by Dr. Alan Schreck. It's entitled, Catholic and Christian, an Explanation of Commonly Misunderstood Catholic Beliefs.

There are two other books written by one of the greatest philosophers of our century, Stanley Jaki. The first one is, And on This Rock, the Witness of One Land and Two Covenants. He shows the geographical, historical and Biblical background for what Jesus intended to say when He renamed Simon, "Rock" or Peter. A very interesting book. Then, this other book of his, The Keys of the Kingdom, a Tool's Witness to Truth focuses upon, not the Rock so much, but the keys of the kingdom that Jesus entrusted to Peter and his successors. These two are full of some of the most valuable information, interesting data, that you will come across.

I want to focus primarily on Matthew 16, verses 17 through 19. And focus upon three aspects that I want to begin with: the Rock, the keys and the guarantee of Jesus that the gates of hell will not prevail.

 

[DHK]

He imparts in Matthew 16, as we will see, that the gates of hell will not prevail against the Church, and will not prevail against the Rock which is Peter and the Popes who are in the line of succession with Peter.

All of which is "hokey-pokey" inasmuch you admitted by the various phrases that you used: "I have yet to prove," it has yet to be shown", etc.
Your premise is both historically and Biblically wrong. To start with a false premise one can only end up promoting false doctrine.

 

[JamieinNH]

Stan quick question.

Are you a Catholic? Your profile states you are a Baptist, so I just wanted to ask.

Jamie

 

[Scarlett O.]

The Church teaches in a simple summary that the Holy Father, the Pope, the Bishop of Rome, as the successor to Peter and the Vicar of Christ, when he speaks as the universal teacher from the Chair of Peter in defining faith and morals does so with an infallible charism or an infallible gift through the Holy Spirit so that we can give to him the full assent of our intellect and our will, and we can hear the voice of Christ coming to us through the voice of the Pope when he is speaking in this capacity.

I am so sorry, but you lost me on the above portion of your statement that I have bolded and underlined.

I do not believe that when Jesus said, "....upon this rock I shall build my church" that he was talking about Peter.

I do not believe that any human including the Pope or Billy Graham or Mother Teresas or Billy Sunday speaks as a universal teacher. I see no scriptural evidence of it.

I do not believe that scripture shows that any human is infallible in any way, shape, or form including their charisma.

I do not believe that scripture shows that being gifted by the Holy Spirit makes one infallible.

I believe that God, Himself, defines faith and morals and I do not believe that scripture says otherwise.

We will listen to what you have to say, but do not expect any converts. :flower: :flower:

I do not believe that scripture shows that we can hear the voice of Christ coming to us through any human means.

 

[stan the man]

Stan quick question.

Are you a Catholic? Your profile states you are a Baptist, so I just wanted to ask.

Jamie

JamieinNH, I am not currently a member of the RCC. But this Easter I will be welcomed in as a member of the RCC. And at that time I will change my profile.

 

[stan the man]

Papal Primacy and Succession

I want to focus primarily on Matthew 16, verses 17 through 19. And focus upon three aspects that I want to begin with: the Rock, the keys and the guarantee of Jesus that the gates of hell will not prevail.

Now that's going to be my starting point and I'm going to take the liberty here, if you will permit me, of summarizing some points. And I don't want to go into an pages worth of detail just on one passage when there are other important passages to cover as well. But those three ideas are closely associated with the very important passage that we find in the first gospel, the Gospel of Matthew, chapter 16, verses 17 through 19.

Let me give you that passage and then I will back up and consider those three aspects. Let's drop back to verse 13, "Now when Jesus came into the district of Caesarea Philippi, He asked His disciples, 'Who do men say that the Son of Man is?' And they said, 'Some say John the Baptist, others say Elijah, others Jeremiah or one of the prophets'." Rather impressive testimony because these people constitute the Old Testament Hall of Fame of Saints, here. "He said to them, 'But who do you say that I am?'" And as is characteristic throughout Matthew's gospel, Peter steps forward, or I should say, speaks up. Peter is the only one to walk on water. Peter is the one who often speaks up, representative of the twelve disciples. Verse 16, "Peter replied, 'You are the Christ,' — the Christos, the Anointed One in Greek or the Messiah in Hebrew, 'the Son of the Living God. You are the Christ, the Son of the Living God.' And Jesus answered him, 'Blessed are you Simon Bar-Jonah for flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but my Father who is in heaven, and I tell you, you are Peter (Petra) and on this Rock (Petros), I will build my Church and the gates of Hades shall not prevail against it. I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven and whatever you bind on earth will have been bound in heaven and whatever you loose on earth will have been loosed in heaven.'" And then He strictly charged the disciples to tell no one that He was the Christ.

 

[JamieinNH]

JamieinNH, I am not currently a member of the RCC. But this Easter I will be welcomed in as a member of the RCC. And at that time I will change my profile.

Thanks for your honesty. You sound like another poster that was here some time ago. He also, was a convert and was converting on Easter also.

I live in New England and I have friends that are Catholic, and I have been to their service, and I find it very lacking. We have talked about it in great detail, and to me, the RCC just has too many man made traditions vers Bibical standings for me.

I'll take the Bible and what it says any day over anything else the RCC wants to teach from.


Jamie

 

[stan the man]

Papal Primacy and Succession

Now, let me just get a little personal here. A few years ago, I had been studying the doctrine of the Covenant. I came to an understanding of the Covenant as a family, and with this insight I began to discover all kinds of exciting truths, novel innovations, new discoveries that I thought were really undiscovered before. Then as I began to dig deeper into these libraries, I noticed that time and time again, Catholic scholars — I mean not just recently but going all the way back to the 1st, 2nd, 3rd, 4th, 5th Centuries, in the Middle Ages — the saints and the Doctors of the Church were consistently coming up with all of my brand new discoveries and teaching them with a kind of ho-hum attitude like, "You all know such and such."

That really, at first it provoked me. Then it scared me and then it led me to dig deeper and deeper into Catholic sources to see how many of my discoveries they may have found in practically every one of them, except the ones that were false. The Pope, though, was a different matter. For me, the idea of a Pope who claims primacy and succession and infallibility was a presumption, an arrogant presumption that no man should make.

But then one day, as I was looking through the Gospel of Matthew, because that stresses, that gospel builds on the Old Testament more than any other and especially the idea of David's kingdom. That really seems to be the central thrust of Matthew's gospel, that Jesus is the Son of David and He is establishing the Kingdom of David. That's how Matthew introduces Jesus. He is the only one of the four gospel writers who traces His genealogy right back to David, and he says, "Jesus, the Son of David" at the very start of Matthew. That's a common and prominent theme throughout the gospel.

 

[stan the man]

Papal Primacy and Succession

Verse 16, "Peter replied, 'You are the Christ,' — the Christos, the Anointed One in Greek or the Messiah in Hebrew, 'the Son of the Living God. You are the Christ, the Son of the Living God.' And Jesus answered him, 'Blessed are you Simon Bar-Jonah for flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but my Father who is in heaven, and I tell you, you are Peter (Petra) and on this Rock (Petros), I will build my Church and the gates of Hades shall not prevail against it. I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven and whatever you bind on earth will have been bound in heaven and whatever you loose on earth will have been loosed in heaven.'" And then He strictly charged the disciples to tell no one that He was the Christ.

So I wanted to dig deep and see what I found in this particular passage, and on the basis of that discovery, or I should say, on the basis of that study, I made some discoveries. First of all, I discovered that when you read in verse 17, "Jesus answered, 'And blessed are you Simon Bar-Jonah, for flesh and blood has not revealed this to you but my Father who is in heaven. And I tell you, you are Peter and on this rock I will build my Church,' " I discovered that all the evidence points to the fact that Peter is the "rock."

Now someone might say, "That's as plain as the nose on your face. What's the excitement of that discovery?" Well, non-Catholics frequently claim that it's Peter's faith that Jesus is speaking of, or Peter's confession that Jesus is speaking of when He says, "this rock." Or other people object and say, "No, Jesus says, 'And you are petros.'" You are petros, you are rock, and on this petra, the Greek word for large rock, "I will build my Church." So some Protestants object to the Catholic view and say, "What Jesus is really saying is. 'You're a little pebble and on this rock, namely Christ, the Rock, (1 Corinthians, 10:4 and so on) I will build my Church.'"

Now the closer I studied the more I realized that those positions were untenable, simply untenable. And I'm going to share later the fact that most conservative anti-Catholic Protestant scholars today will admit that readily and candidly. The more I dug, the more I found that the evidence pointed to the fact that Jesus was speaking of Peter. Peter is the Rock. Peter just said, "You are the Christos," so Jesus says, "You are the Petros." There is a little parallelism there. "You are the Son of the Living God" and "You are the son of Jonah, Simon Bar-Jonah; you are the Petros."

 

[stan the man]

Now the closer I studied the more I realized that those positions were untenable, simply untenable. And I'm going to share later the fact that most conservative anti-Catholic Protestant scholars today will admit that readily and candidly. The more I dug, the more I found that the evidence pointed to the fact that Jesus was speaking of Peter. Peter is the Rock. Peter just said, "You are the Christos," so Jesus says, "You are the Petros." There is a little parallelism there. "You are the Son of the Living God" and "You are the son of Jonah, Simon Bar-Jonah; you are the Petros."

Now people could say, "Wait a second. There is a distinction in the Greek language between petros," Peter's name and petra. Petros can mean stone, whereas petra can often mean "big rock." The problem with that is two-fold. First of all, Jesus probably didn't speak Greek when He was with the disciples. I mean that is held by 99.9 percent of all scholars. It's overwhelmingly unlikely that Jesus in His normal conversations spoke Greek. What's almost certain is that He spoke Aramaic and in the Aramaic there is only one word that could possibly be used and Kouman and other scholars have pointed to the fact that if Jesus spoke Aramaic, He only could have said, "You are Cephus, and on this Cephus I build my Church." So given our knowledge of the Aramaic language, there is no possibility for Jesus to have made the distinction between "little stone" and "big rock." The Aramaic language doesn't allow it.

Well, somebody could say, "The Holy Spirit inspired Matthew to use two different words. Well, that's true, because "petra" is the word in Greek that is normally used for "large rock," but — I should say petra is the Greek word that means "large rock" but it's in the feminine form. In other words, the gender of this Greek word, petra, large rock, is feminine. You do not apply a feminine form of the word in order to name a male. You adopt it by giving the masculine form. In other words what Matthew was doing, guided by the Holy Spirit, is something that was rather obvious and practically necessary. That was to take the Greek from Jesus' saying and start by saying, "I will build my Church on this massive stone, this 'petra' in the feminine but then to show that Peter gets the name, "Rock" in its proper masculine form.

You wouldn't name him Josephine or Rockina or, you know, something like that. You give him the masculine form of the word. I should also add that there is absolutely no archeological evidence from antiquity for anybody having been named Peter before Simon. In other words, Jesus was taking a word that had never been used as far as all the many records we have are concerned, never was used to designate an individual person and Jesus gives that name, gives that word to Simon.

I am running short on time, so I will continue this at a later time.

 

[DHK]

and I tell you, you are Peter (Petra) and on this Rock (Petros),

You are the Petros." There is a little parallelism there. "You are the Son of the Living God" and "You are the son of Jonah, Simon Bar-Jonah; you are the Petros."

Be honest in your post or don't post at all. Jesus did not say what you claimed he said. Here is the verse:

Matthew 16:18 And <de> I say <lego> also <kago> unto thee <soi>, That <hoti> thou <su> art <ei> Peter <Petros>, and <kai> upon <epi> this <taute> rock <petra> I will build <oikodomeo> my <mou> church <ekklesia>; and <kai> the gates <pule> of hell <hades> shall <katischuo> not <ou> prevail against <katischuo> it <autos>.

Your claim is that Peter is petra. That is false, as you can clearly see in the verse I quoted for you. Honesty is a virtue. You can't prove a truth with lies.

 

[Eric B]

I should say petra is the Greek word that means "large rock" but it's in the feminine form. In other words, the gender of this Greek word, petra, large rock, is feminine. You do not apply a feminine form of the word in order to name a male. You adopt it by giving the masculine form. In other words what Matthew was doing, guided by the Holy Spirit, is something that was rather obvious and practically necessary. That was to take the Greek from Jesus' saying and start by saying, "I will build my Church on this massive stone, this 'petra' in the feminine but then to show that Peter gets the name, "Rock" in its proper masculine form

Then why was the feminine form used at all? That would be an even bigger proof against your view.

 

[Eliyahu]

Papacy system itself is absolutely groundless in the Bible.
All the atrocities conducted by Popes are remembered by God.
Jesus will never have the summit meeting with the Pope when He comes again, but will throw away then-current Pope into the Lake of Fire!
The late Holy Father of Roman Catholic died, but our Holy Father never dies!

Petros is the masculine noun for small stone, while Petra is the Feminine Noun for the mountain size Rock.
Peter calls himself just as an Elder ( 1 Peter 5:1), and that's it. The True Rock mentioned in Mt 16:18 is Jesus Christ Himself and the contents of the confession by Peter.

 

[Eliyahu]

'Blessed are you Simon Bar-Jonah for flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but my Father who is in heaven, and I tell you, you are Peter (Petra) and on this Rock (Petros), I will build my Church and the gates of Hades shall not prevail against it. I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven and whatever you bind on earth will have been bound in heaven and whatever you loose on earth will have been loosed in heaven.'" And then He strictly charged the disciples to tell no one that He was the Christ.

Your knowledge is exactly contrary to the Truth:

Read Greek NT:

It says " You are Petros, and Upon this Petra, I will build my ecclesia.


How come do you bring the exactly UNTRUTH?

 

[Darron Steele]

Most Catholic apologist arguments are done with sincerity, but are parroted from deceptive twists of relevant facts. Most Catholic converts honestly believe things that should not be believed, possibly from people who are just as honest but have the same problem.

An example is the Catechism of the Catholic Church which claims compassion for having policies against shedding blood during the Inquisition time period. Most Inquisition victims probably would have preferred getting quickly struck down with the sword instead of what was inflicted on them. However, it sounds nice.

Catholic apologists often assume legends are fact. An example is the claim that Rome had a monarchial bishop since the days of the apostles and that he ran the church. This is a legend that has no support from that time period and the decades immediately afterward. The hearer/reader is not usually informed of this.

Catholic apologists omit that the Orthodox claim to be the continuation of the early medieval church that had the famous councils. They rarely address why their claim would be any more valid than the Orthodox claim. They rarely address that anyone else shares the claim they make to this.

There is no dishonesty on the part of most presenters of Catholic arguments. They are just passing on smooth-sounding stuff that was passed to them and they bought into.

Another one of those arguments is the unproven hypothesis that the conversation of Matthew 16 was in Aramaic. There is no real evidence of this. Galileans knew more than one language, and Greek was a common language -- and Greek would have been well-suited to the type of point Jesus wanted to make. Greek lexicons have separate entries for the separate words transliterated "petra" and "Petros.

Jesus' was talking about Who He is, and He was congratulating Peter =Petros on his recognition of Who He is, and in Greek, Jesus creatively refocused everyone's attention on Him, pointing out that the foundation of the church is the foundation boulder = petra that Jesus is the Christ.

 

[I Am Blessed 24]

Stan, I have an advantage over you. I was raised catholic and you are buying into a false theology.

PTL I found the true Jesus Christ and He is the only one I have to confess my sins to...

BTW, it is against BB rules to push catholic doctrine.

 

[BobRyan]

The Church teaches in a simple summary that the Holy Father, the Pope, the Bishop of Rome, as the successor to Peter and the Vicar of Christ, when he speaks as the universal teacher from the Chair of Peter in defining faith and morals does so with an infallible charism or an infallible gift through the Holy Spirit so that we can give to him the full assent of our intellect and our will, and we can hear the voice of Christ coming to us through the voice of the Pope when he is speaking in this capacity.

Popes throughout history have taught many and varied doctrinal and moral heresies. This is a fact of history. The RCC says "ahhh yes but they were not speaking ex cathedra while teaching those heresies".

The problem is this little trick of "say mother may I first" in the form of "say ex cathedra" was not invented until the 1900's so no Pope knew to say "I now say Ex Cathedra" and then follow with his favorite heresy.

In Christ,

Bob

 

[BobRyan]

Stan
I want to flush off on the meanings of this as time goes on, but there are three basic issues or problems. First of all, can I prove Papal Primacy, that is, that the Pope is not just the first among equals but that he has a certain primacy, a unique supremacy in relation to all of the Bishops. I have to begin by showing that Jesus conferred this gift upon Peter. Then secondly, I have to establish the doctrine of Papal succession. If I can prove from the Bible that Peter was granted by Jesus a certain primacy, that doesn't go far enough. I then have to go on to establish Papal succession; that is, Peter had successors to whom would be entrusted the same gift or charism. Then thirdly, I have to establish evidence for Papal infallibility, that is that God grants a gift to the successors of Peter for them, not to give new revelations.

Your approach is well reasoned and logical sir - the problem is that the facts of both history and scripture are not in favor of the task you have given yourself.

A key fact of history is "multiple rival papal lines all fully established by the council of Cardinals and all defrocked at once by the Emperor".

Basically Charles set himself and his council above all reigning Papal lines and charged that they all resign. He then setup his own Pope and that is the one papal line that has been passed down to us today.

The other glaring problem is that even in the single lines that ran in Rome - the successors took control by bribes, nepotism, mob violence and assassination during the dark ages.

In Christ,

Bob

 

[Claudia_T]

Originally Posted by stan the man

The Church teaches in a simple summary that the Holy Father, the Pope, the Bishop of Rome, as the successor to Peter and the Vicar of Christ, when he speaks as the universal teacher from the Chair of Peter in defining faith and morals does so with an infallible charism or an infallible gift through the Holy Spirit so that we can give to him the full assent of our intellect and our will, and we can hear the voice of Christ coming to us through the voice of the Pope when he is speaking in this capacity.

I dont think that Popes have all said the same thing either. How can morals or anything else just be changed at some man's will? How can that changable thing be regarded as "infallible"?

If the Pope supposedly speaks for God, well God doesnt change from day to day.

Jms:1:17: the Father of lights, with whom is no variableness, neither shadow of turning.

Thats why you shouldnt just go by whatever the church leaders say or by whatever your pastor says.

Jesus said to call no man Master or Teacher because "all ye are brethren", all are liable to err.


Claudia